Ideal Assault rifle cartridge.

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I'm going to put a foot outside the box

I thought that my 6.5x50 Japanese round was pretty sweet. I know that the Japanese abandoned it in favor of 7.7x58 to help with--drum roll please--shooting through mud walls in Manchuria. I think that 80 years' worth of advances in bullets/powder/metallurgy could change those original cartridge deficiencies. Why couldn't we consider a scaled down polymer M14 with a short stroke piston and add selecta-fire for single/3-shot capability?

I like the idea, but I also know that an up-tempo 6.5x50 puts me in the same cartridge size as a .243 Win which is already a well-known entity, so that would be my second suggestion.

I don't obsess about these topics, but when you read more than one "got up and ran off" stories from Iraq and Afganistan, I do think things could be done better.
 
"I know that the Japanese abandoned it in favor of 7.7x58 to help with--drum roll please--shooting through mud walls in Manchuria."

Uhm.... no.

All this BS about shooting through mud walls is just that...

Nothing short of a frigging cannon is going to reliably plow through a mud wall that's more than a few inches thick.

Dirt is a VERY effective barrier to bullets. It would take a LOT of them hitting the same place to get through a foot or more of dried dirt.


The reason the 6.5x50 Arisaka was abandoned was the same reason the 6.5x52 Carcano was abandoned, and also the reason the US Navy abandoned the 6mm Lee Navy several decades before -- lack of wounding capability.

That had everything to do with bullet design.

Those early bullets had very high sectional densities, which means that they were capable of penetrating signficant distances in flesh without tumbling.

The primary wounding mechanism for an FMJ bullet is tumbling, but these bullets are capable of penetrating several FEET into tissue and bone before they will tumble. That's why Karamajo Bell liked military rounds like the 6.5x54 Mannlicher Schonauer and the 7mm Mauser for punching elephants. Excellent penetration.

Both the 7.35 Carcano and the 7.7 Japanese rounds used redesigned bullets that would become unstable and tumble a lot quicker when impacting flesh.


All that said, you make some interesting observations about the 6.5x50 Arisaka. One of my "one of these days" pet projects has been to rebarrel a rifle for the 6.5 and put it through its paces.

It is an extremely well balanced and efficient round. It has a lot of similarities to the 6.8mm round that was being developed as a possible replacement for the 5.56.
 
The 5.56 is a result of political meddling and ignorant intrusions into areas where they have no expertise. The 5.56 is a .22 caliber and has no business on the battlefield.

People have just accepted it because it was forced to be adopted by a military that didn't want it and has had to pay the consequences.

But since it is the current military caliber it is taken as gospel that it must be THE caliber to have. If not forced on the military I guarantee it would not be their current choice, why do you think alteratives are always being considered?

If it's what people are satisfied with, well it's their prerogative, but there are much better choices out there.

Consider why its such a popular VARMINT round.

I feel the 6.8spcII would be the ideal assault rifle/lmg round, but take it for what you will.
 
Air Force General Curtis LeMay had a July 4th party in 1960 and an AR15 was brought to the party. LeMay was impressed with the way it blew up a watermelon so he placed an order for the Air Force who officially adopted the rifle in 1962. I don't see how that constitutes "being forced on the military".
 
Given the rather dismal showing for the M14 and the 7.62x51 cartridge in Vietnam, it's probably a good thing that the 5.56 was forced on the military.

It helped change their collective thinking.

Lord knows nothing else was going to change it, and it was FIRMLY stuck in the latter half of the 19th century firearms and ammunition.
 
In spite of some people's best efforts, progress is (sometimes) possible but not always the way you expect it or where you're hoping to see it. Sometimes there are "I could have thought of that" moments.

Let's start with the .30-06, for a long time the standard both here and abroad. Although the M16 might hold the record for longest serving army rifle, the 5.56 has decades to go before it's has as many service stripes as the .30-06. If it was so good, why didn't we keep it? Maybe we should have and probably could have, seeing how the 7.62 NATO turned out. That was the intermediate cartridge that wasn't. It wasn't a bad cartridge and neither was any of the weapons that used it, except maybe a couple of machine guns, but an intermediate cartridge to replace everything else, it wasn't. And it didn't. In fact, some (N.G.) units were still using M1 rifles and BARs after most of the army had M16s.

But it was long and it was powerful. It was longer than it needed to be, at least it was longer than anyone elses primary cartridge and more powerful, too, not that you ever heard any complaints. But from a weapon design standpoint, shorter cartridges are easier to design around. So are rimless cartridges but some people never get the word, you know. Now if shorter cartridges are a little better, then a little progress has come about.

Was it better than cartridges from the end of the 19th century? Sure, it was. Was it better than the 7.9mm cartridge the Germans used in WWI. Well, maybe, maybe not!

So, why do you suppose the AR-10 made so little impression on the world?
 
We did keep the .30-06 when we adopted the 7.62x51.

One of the purposes of the project that eventually spawned the 7.62 was to keep the .30-06's proven ballistics while getting rid of the approximately 1/3rd to 1/2" of dead air space between the base of the bullet and the powder in the case.

By 19th century, I'm talking about small arms theory, such as "The rifle needs to be capable of aimed, accurate shots, out to a minimum of 1,000 meters because, don't you know, and in spite of 100 years evidence to the contrary, ALL combat happens at ranges past 400 meters."
 
When you look at the damage and performance of the 5.56 its actually a good bang for the buck.

Believe it or not, the army is a fairly progressive institution. Many soldiers don't make it through the initial enlistment without experiencing some sort of change. The army readily adopts new equipment, tactics and procedures when needed. If something works, the army also keeps it.

I have no doubts that if the m16 or m4 were severely lacking, they would have been replaced decades ago.
 
5.56 is lighter to carry...less expensive...green tip/black tip can penetrate well

emotionally, 5.56 is also more effective in war because it doesn't always kill...I don't know where I heard it but someone said (paraphrased) if you kill a man, you take one off the field...if you wound a man, you take three off the field
 
To the honorable Mr. Irwin, I'm not sure that 1,000 yard idea was exactly what they had in mind in 1890 but it certainly was 40 years later. In fact the army would pay a kind of pro-pay for marksmanship but usually there wasn't enough money to actually make the payments, or so I've heard. In the last few decades of the 19th century it was more by volley fire that made long range shooting effective, although it was aimed fire, to be sure. But I like your way of saying that we did keep the .30-06.
 
emotionally, 5.56 is also more effective in war because it doesn't always kill...I don't know where I heard it but someone said (paraphrased) if you kill a man, you take one off the field...if you wound a man, you take three off the field
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True in Western wars. Not-so-true in the wars we are currently engaged in (and most likely to be engaged in for some time to come)

...not sure that 1,000 yard idea was exactly what they had in mind in 1890
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Probably not. But there was reason behind '03A1 being hardwire/battlezero'd at 540 yards with the ladder down.

I still find it fascinating that there are those who say running out of gas at 400 yards is OK -- because we rarely needed it in past wars -- when we can simply change out cartridge/barrel to make that 50-year old M16 platform effective at twice the distance with no change in weight, or basic design, or controllability.

However I admit that since the rifle will appear exactly the same before/after modification, it would be "advisable" to clearly mark them.
 
FWIW, Corbon makes some premium 7.62x39, brass cased ammo with the following specifications:

Caliber: 7.62x39
Bullet Wt.: 150gr CORBON Hunter JSP
Velocity: 2300fps
Energy: 1762ftlbs
Test Barrel Length: 20.0 Inches

Not bad.
 
When I went through basic training with an M14 in 1965, I was always surprised when I hit any of the more distant targets but I sure didn't hit them all and I always used the same rifle. Undoubtedly some of the ammunition was faulty. However, I was amazed when I missed the closest ones. But judging from the plowed up ground around the (closest) target, apparently others were making the same mistake, which I think may have been over-allowing for something, like the rise in the trajectory. I don't even recall what the zero was for.

Now about those wounded enemy soldiers: why is people always assume it is the enemy that's going to be taking care of them?
 
-- lack of wounding capability.

That had everything to do with bullet design.
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Then they could have improved their 6.5s with a lot less cost and trouble than a whole new caliber (and in the Japanese case, a whole new rifle.) A lighter weight spitzer bullet* would have flattened trajectory and dealt nastier wounds. Of course, since they were our enemies, any lack of efficiency was to our good.

Although the calibers were larger to start with, we, the British, and the Germans had taken that step years before. And the Swedes had gone to a lighter, pointed 6.5x55 for a direct example. Not like it was an arcane secret.

*There is a chapter in one of P.O. Ackley's books by the Army doctor who worked the pig and goat shooting tests. He had nothing good to say about the vaunted .276 Pedersen but said a .256 with 125 grain flatbase spitzer at 2700 fps was very effective. Mr Clancy, this board, once put up a copy of an old document with a little about the seldom heard of .256 Pedersen variant.
 
"To the honorable Mr. Irwin, I'm not sure that 1,000 yard idea was exactly what they had in mind in 1890 but it certainly was 40 years later."

Oh really?

Ever hear of the Buffington sight? Introduced in 1884 on that model, it brought something new to the concept of riflery in the US Army -- long range aimed fire.

Quoted from the 1898 version of the "Description and Rules for the Management of the Springfield Rifle, Carbine and Army Revolvers":

"The leaf is down for "point blank;" up for 200 to 2,000 yards, inclusive, with both open and apeture sights."

Interesting two page scan here, about 1/3rd down the page:

http://www.trapdoorcollector.com/shooterstext.html

The military started training (if you could call it that) its men in long-distance rifle fire starting at that time.

The first military 1,000 yard matches were held in the late 1800s, finally culminating with the establishment of the National Matches in 1903 at Sea Girt, New Jersey (now at Camp Perry, Ohio).

The Civil War had been fought with Napoleonic tactics, early on by men armed largely with smoothbore guns somewhat suitable to those tactics (Irish Brigade at the Sunken Road is a good example), but later with rifled muskets capable of excellent accuracy at 500 yards or more.

The guns changed, but it took the winnowing out of the pre-Civil War leaders to understand that weaponry had changed, and that was finally happening in spades in the late 1870s.

That's when the concept of massed fire from closed ranks finally died to be replaced by something that would, in time, prove to be equally as suspect -- every man armed with a long-range rifle with long-range sights is now a perfect sniping machine.

The enemy will never be able to get close.

That kind of thinking, despite all the evidence to the contrary, carried the military right through World War II and into the adoption of the M14 and 7.62 rounds until it was finally killed off by the realities of Vietnam.
 
why do you think alteratives are always being considered?
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Because the 5.56 is not an end all be all round and if you are not always looking to improve then you are going to fall behind in strength, technology, and capability.
 
Because the 5.56 is not an end all be all round and if you are not always looking to improve then you are going to fall behind in strength, technology, and capability.
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It makes little matter if we stay with the 5.56, or go to a new cartridge. People will not only be trying to do one better, but there is not, and probably never will be one ideal cartridge, that is good for each and every situation a soldier with an assault rifle may encounter. Its about comprimise.
 
Looking at my last post I see that it seems to be saying that we need to improve the 5.56 but I was merely trying to say that just because there are tests to replace it does not mean that the round is ineffective. In fact just the opposite because it has gone through all the tests and replacement trials and the round is still the standard issue.
 
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